I was not looking for anything that night.
Just a tired mom, phone in hand, mindlessly scrolling through a sea of content I would not remember by morning.
Then a video stopped me.
Less than a minute long. A doctor or an expert – I don’t even remember who – and a title so specific it felt like it was written for me.
I pressed play.
And in under sixty seconds, something I had been carrying for months without language finally had a name.
I put my phone down and cried.
There is a word for what happens to you when you become a mother.
It is not postpartum depression, though that is real, and it matters.
It is not the baby blues, though those are real, too.
It is something bigger, quieter, and longer than both.
It is called matrescence.
Matrescence was first named by anthropologist Dana Raphael in the 1970s.
It describes the developmental transition a woman goes through when she becomes a mother — physically, emotionally, psychologically, and socially.
Like adolescence, it is a complete reorganization of self. Like adolescence, it is disorienting by nature. And like adolescence, it eventually passes into something more settled.
But unlike adolescence, no one prepares you for it.
No one sits you down and says: you are about to change at a cellular level. Your identity will shift. You may grieve the person you were, even while loving the person you are becoming. This is not a malfunction. This is matrescence.
You may grieve the person you were, even while loving the person you are becoming. This is not a malfunction. This is matrescence.
Maybe you recognize this.
You love your baby completely and also feel like you have lost yourself. Both are true at the same time.
You do not recognize your body. You do not recognize your priorities. You wonder who you are now that the old version of you has been rearranged.
You feel guilty for grieving anything at all because you are supposed to be grateful.
This is not weakness. This is not ingratitude. This is matrescence doing exactly what it is supposed to do, cracking you open so something new can grow.
When I first heard this word, I cried.
Not because it fixed anything. But because it named something I had been carrying without language.
And when you have a name for something, you stop thinking it is your fault.
You are not broken. You are not failing at motherhood. You are in the middle of one of the most profound transitions a human being can go through.
Matrescence is the reason Daily Ginhawa exists. Because moms in the middle of this transition do not need a stricter plan, they need gentleness. They need to be seen. They need to know this is supposed to be hard, and that they will find themselves again on the other side.
You are not lost. You are in matrescence. And you are right on time.
If you downloaded the Daily Ginhawa guide and found your way here, welcome.
This is where we begin. With honesty, with the right words, and with the understanding that what you are feeling has a name.
With love,
Kristen
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